encounters

Living in the boondocks brings you into contact with nature occasionally. I've talked about this in some of my previous posts . . . if you want to read them, type "collision" in the search box. Sometimes the contact is nice, like when a mother grouse leads her family of chicks across the lawn. Sometimes it's sad, like the time a couple of loon chicks showed up in front of our house. We tried to return them to their mother at a nearby pond, but I suspect that nature took its course with them.

Sometimes we'd prefer to avoid the contact altogether. I had to deal with a small hornet's nest in our bike shed the other day. I have nothing against hornets, and I agree we should try to peacefully coexist with nature, but I really didn't want my kids having natural or unnatural contact with a hornet's rear end. I took a can of Raid to the nest.

Firefighters have to deal with nature occasionally. Usually it's in the form of a moose that had an unfortunate encounter with a vehicle. The moose always loses, and the vehicles and passengers often don't fare so well either. Here's a photo of a recent moose hit we attended.



If nothing else, it should be a good incentive to wear your seatbelt. Click here for a video of a fire truck crash in St Louis where everyone involved was glad they had their seatbelts on. The eight firefighters on board suffered minor injuries. Imagine what would have happened if they hadn't been belted in. Click here for more on the story. None of us plan these things, which is why you should buckle up everytime you get in the vehicle. You probably won't be running red lights - and we shouldn't be either, unless we stop first - but it's dangerous out there nonetheless. I could give you several examples every month to prove it.

Our Amkus spreader made it safely to Williamstown yesterday (see my July 8 posting). I guess my innovative, homemade packing worked. Now we have to wait and see how much it will cost to fix it. In the meantime, we have a good set of Hurst tools on the truck, which the Fire College generously loaned us, just in case someone does happen to need our services before our spreader gets fixed.

I'm looking forward to a quiet weekend. Drive safely everyone, especially between Raith and English River (our hundred kilometres of highway heaven).